


but alas we cannot swim

by balconys



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Canon Compliant, Depiction of Amnesia, Dreams, Friendship, Future Fic, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 16:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1191711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balconys/pseuds/balconys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>{"They're building a pool two blocks from here," Makoto tells him one day, right before the bell rings. Haruka tears his eyes away from the window to find his friend's eyes shining. It looks a little like hope. "I hear they're opening it in a week. Want to check it out?"</p><p>He doesn't understand the look on Makoto's face when he tells him he has a paper to write. One week later, the pool is bright and blue with promise. Haruka can see it glistening from the rooftop, in the corner edge of the windows of his Philosophy class. </p><p>Makoto doesn't bring it up again.}</p><p>Sometimes, Haruka wonders what it is he might have missed, feels it like a hollowness twisting itself into his bones; and, of course: it's always the same lopsided grin scribbled on the margins. Always.}</p>
            </blockquote>





	but alas we cannot swim

**Author's Note:**

> the usual warnings: artsy-fartsy run-on sentences, weird italics and other weird things that might pop out because i needed to get this thing away from me asap. lyrics from Where Is My Mind, cover by Yoav and Emily Browning, from which this was inspired. also, i'm so sorry i'm trash someone kick me out of the fandom

{way out, in the water

see it swimming

where is my mind?}

 

 

 

 

 

 

**x**

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

The world today is bright. _It's a nice kind of bright_ , Makoto says - or at least, Haruka thinks he does - small smile in place as he shifts his weight to his other foot, sliding a thumb beneath his backpack strap with a muffled snap. His voice is as distinct as a car engine, barely recognizable from the soft murmur of the background; Haruka thinks they might have been talking about something - something about a sale. Discounted carrots, maybe. It takes a lot to pay attention; the afternoon haze is enough for all thought to slowly wander.

At twelve in the afternoon the people who take the train are different, younger, louder. A lot more alive. Like the bumbling sweethearts with the matching t-shirts sitting on Haruka's right, bodies hunched towards each other while the laughter shakes the space between them. Of course, the seat was Makoto's to begin with, but he just _had_ to give it up for the pair of starry-eyed twelve year-olds. Haruka pays them no heed, staring listlessly past Makoto's head where the sun burns behind blurring rows of trees, buildings.

 _Too bright_ , Haruka decides, eyes wincing, and turns his eyes back to page 37, where a half-formed sketch of a man's torso spills right over from the margins and into the tiny printed letters. The voice over announces some district name Haruka hardly pays attention to as the carriage slows, inches to a halt. _Shhhk_. There's a ding and the doors slide open, people pooling out. He shades in the folds of the shirt. 

"Why is his back turned to us?" Makoto says, leaning in close enough to just barely graze Haruka's personal space.

It takes a few seconds before he finally replies, "I don't know," and makes no effort to hide the drawing from Makoto's prying eyes. He shades in the highlights on the hair, darkens the lines on the clothing.

"You do know that's your Philosophy book you're scribbling on, right?"  
  
"It's fine," he replies, because it is, really. It's not as if it caring right now would matter anyway, not when he's filled in almost every empty space with scribbles of any of his strange, unbidden fancies. 

He hears Makoto chuckle lightly. "I'm glad to see you're really getting into this art thing," the shadow of his head swallows the entire page as the train rounds a curve, the sun blistering behind Makoto's ear. "That project you mentioned, how's it doing?"

Haruka rests his pencil, leaning his head back against the glass. "Haven't finished it," he lets his eyes drop to a corner of the floor, pausing. The words that come next are soft. "When it's done... I want you to be the first one to see it. Just - to show my thanks. You know." Slowly, he glances up and catches the look Makoto gives him - a little _too_ happy - and turns away.

"Thanks Haru. I- I'm glad. Really," he says, smiling like it's all he's ever wanted. The teenage girl on Haruka's right gives an excited giggle, her ears red; Haruka shifts a little bit to left, lips pressed in disdain. He smoothens the page, looks down to find that the shadow on the page is gone. "You smile too much."

"Really?"

"Yes. Don't your cheeks get tired?"

"Well, I never really paid attention," Makoto laughs, sheepish. "I can't help it, I guess. Maybe I'm just excited? We _are_ meeting up with Nagisa for the first time in . . . a while."

The pencil stills. "Nagisa," Haruka says. "Nagisa Hazuki."

For a fleeting moment the smile on Makoto's lips falters, but then it's back on again, gleaming in all its warmth. "Yeah. The little devil."

He doesn't realize the train stopped. Makoto almost steps on his toes as moves closer to allow more space behind him for people alighting the carriage, the tiny lovers close at the back of the crowd, their hands intertwined.

"It'll be fine, hey," he hears Makoto murmur, but there it is again, the open window where all half-formed thoughts drift into fog. "It's just Nagisa for now. It'll be fun."

Lately, he thinks, Makoto has been making a lot of promises. The doors slide shut.

He breathes out slowly. "Yeah."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_He meets him in the place where the ocean bleeds into dry ground, where the waves beat music into the shore like an incessant pulse. The boy is grinning at him when he surfaces, hair ruby-red but not quite, eyes so very, very wild. It catches Haruka off-guard, makes him sink back into the deep._

_"I'm lost," the boy tells him, sliding down to his feet from his perch on a lonely rock. In this side of the world there is nothing but land, dry and thirsty, but with every step the boy makes that touches the ground there are flowers that spring up from the earth, from between the cracks. He points a finger somewhere off the horizon. "I'm not really sure, but I think that's the place I need to go."_

_Haruka stares. "It looks like a pretty place," he can't help but reply. His voice sounds like an antique, he realizes, like clockwork needing oiling, cracked from disuse._

_"Right, right?" the strange boy says, delighted. "And warm too. I saw you swim, you're really fast! Hey, won't you teach me to swim like you?"_

_"No," Haruka says, immediate._

_The boy's face doesn't fall, like Haruka expects it to. It brightens instead, his smile glinting like a well-kept secret, and Haruka finds that he can't look away._

_"It'll be with a price, of course," he says, assuring, reaching his hand past the line dividing land and sea, out where Haruka is, curled in the ocean's embrace._

_"Oh, come on, it's just a gift," he urges, the waves falling at his feet. They tug at his heels as though to pull him in. "Come here, closer!"_

_Slowly, slowly . . . Haruka inches towards him, towards the pink flowers unfurling at his heels, reaches hesitantly for the boy's hand and blinks when he gets a kiss._

_"Wha-what?" Haruka begins. The shore is receding from his waist. It feels . . . strange. His body feels lighter, and Haruka thinks he might have been sleeping at the bottom of the sea for far too long. "What was that?"_

_Up close the boy's eyes are even wilder, unbridled as the sky._

_He grins. "Freedom."_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moment they step out the doors the silence is all but over. A golden blur launches itself at the both of them so fast even Makoto almost keels over.

"Nagisa—"

"Mako-chan, Haru-chaaaaan," the young man whines, arms thrown around their necks like a vice. Instantly, Haruka can feel the stares seeping into his clothes. "It's been so _long_."

They pick some cheap Chinese restaurant, or rather, Nagisa does - "It's the only thing I can afford right now, but their noodles are to _die_ for, the very best in the face of this good, green earth, I promise you that" - and enter the glass doors to find the place absolutely bursting. A waitress with painted cheeks and jade teardrop earrings manages to find them a table for two, sliding an extra chair at the side because there really is no other option. Smiling assuredly, Makoto takes the seat and waves her away with an easy smile.

"Told you this place was popular," Nagisa grins, when they finally settle down, leaning back to rock the chair on its hind legs. Haruka watches, silent, and feels his heart skip whenever the chair leans back a little too far. "Bet they all come here for the noodles too."

"How long has it been, Nagisa? A year?" Makoto says. "You grew taller too."

"Really?" and the boy nearly jumps out of his chair, marveling at his body as though it were brand new. "I knew it!"  Warily, their waitress hands them a pile of menus. "So, what have you been up to, huh?" Nagisa says. "You don't text me as much anymore."

"Well, besides college?" Makoto hands a menu to Haruka, who takes it with barely a glance. "Lately I've been working part time at this kindergarten playhouse every weekend. Don't worry, I took the day off today so it's fine. The kids are great, it's all fun every time. Even if Haru and I share the rent, it's nice to have a little pocket money, you know?"

"I always wanted to work with kids," Nagisa says wistfully. Then he turns to Haruka, smile expectant. "What about you, Haru-chan?"

Haruka blinks at him, caught in the act of his very blatant staring. Beside him, Makoto pretends to have trouble choosing lunch. "Well," he begins, testing his voice. "I draw."

"Yeah?"

Haruka pauses. "Sometimes I paint. 

"That's cool!" Nagisa says, still overly cheerful, when it becomes clear that Haruka isn't going to say anything further than that. "You always were the artistic one, Haru-chan. Could've chosen the Fine Arts if you really wanted to. Ah," he turns to the waitress who asks them for their order. "I'll have the special. Mako-chan?"

"Same."

"What about you, Haru-chan. Oh, here—" Nagisa shoves the seafood section at his face. "They cook everything you like in every imaginable dish, isn't that cool? Look, they even have a sizzling plate—"

"I'll just have what you're having," Haruka says. The way Nagisa's grin flickers in a span of a millisecond is so fleeting Haruka barely catches it - except, he does, and he swallows, shifts his position a little on his seat, occupying himself with staring at the cooks showing off with their woks, the flames erupting pentecostal behind a glass screen. I need a pen, he thinks, fingers starting to ache.

"Okay," Nagisa says, and again Haruka pretends not to notice the quick glance he shares with Makoto. He finds himself fiddling with a tissue napkin. "Okay. Three specials then. Extra shrimp toppings, please!" Their waitress nods, jade earrings swaying, and is gone once again.

Nagisa stares at him. "You know, I'm really grateful for you guys coming all the way to meet up with me. I really am." The honesty in his voice is too much; Haruka tries to swallow the guilt down. "I missed you so much, you don't even know."

Tearing his eyes away from the cooks, Haruka forces himself to return Nagisa's gaze. Warily, he tries, tongue heavy, "You too, Nagisa-kun," and hopes it's enough.

But there it is. Again. But this time Nagisa manages to cover it up with the biggest, brightest smile Haruka has ever seen it makes his chest ache with just seeing it, and it's not long before he forgets. 

"Hey, did I tell you about this party I'm planning on throwing Rei-chan," he begins, a stream of energy-charged words spilling soon after, and suddenly Haruka realizes he isn't going to stop any time soon. Makoto shoots him a smile that's a little between amused and apologetic - "I mean, _can you believe it?"_ Nagisa almost roars in laughter, mentions something about lotions and pie and entrance exams - and Makoto is pulled right in.

"Are you okay?" Haruka hears him ask after a while, when they find him silent and ashen, his forehead delicately cradled on his palm. Slowly, he opens his eyes; he never realized he closed them. "Haru? Hey."

"He flopped," Haruka mutters.

Nagisa finally stops. "What?"

"He flopped," he repeats, raising his face, eyes set on Nagisa's. He squeezes his trembling hands together. "Back in high school. Everyone thought he'd be a great diver. But then he just - failed. Rei, he-"

"Yeah," Makoto says, bewildered, staring at Haruka.

"Yes," Nagisa blinks. Then he begins to giggle, a bubbling little sound, looking as though he'd about drift up from his seat at any moment like some sort of cloud. "Yes yes _yes_ , Haru-chan! He did! Sunk like a log too, that _idiot_." 

"Haru," Makoto sighs, smiling and laughing and _relieved_. 

"He did. I'm so happy, Haru-chan," Nagisa gushes, almost throwing himself across the table to squeeze Haruka's hands. "He did, didn't he?" 

Haruka swallows air. "Yeah," he whispers, feeling a lightheaded. "He did." His head feels like soup and he has never been more confused in his life, but finally Makoto and Nagisa's smiles are real and all he can really think about is _thank God, thank God._  

Somehow Nagisa is as familiar as the skin on his back, and Haruka finds that maybe he doesn't even have to try. A warmth coils in the pit of his stomach, the air thick with laughter and chicken broth and Chinese wind pipes. It feels strange. Like home, perhaps? He wonders. 

"We don't even know if he passed yet," he hears Makoto say. 

"Silly, it's _Rei-chan_. Of course he'll pass," the blonde waves him off playfully. "Haru-chan, are you still even listening to me? What're you doing?" 

"Nothing," Haruka says, without paying him a glance. On a napkin he doodles a baby dragon, some flowers, a man's face turned on its side, nose angled sharp. 

" _Haru-chaaaan_." 

Makoto laughs. "I guess I really do missed you, Nagisa."

"I missed you more," Nagisa pretends to sob; somehow Haruka can't help the smile turning at the corners of his lips. Their noodles come almost forty minutes late. 

It's enough for now, he thinks. It needs to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(But, most of the time, it's not.)

"They're building a pool two blocks from here," Makoto tells him one day, right before the bell rings. Haruka tears his eyes away from the window to find his friend's eyes shining. It looks a little like hope. "I hear they're opening it in a week. Want to check it out?"

He doesn't understand the look on Makoto's face when he tells him he has a paper to write. One week later, the pool is bright and blue with promise. Haruka can see it glistening from the rooftop, in the corner edge of the windows of his Philosophy class. 

Makoto doesn't bring it up again.

 _It's just a pool,_ he wonders, picks up a pen and scribbles a dragonfly on a spider's web. 

 

 

  

 

 

And then, later: "Does it look strange to you?" he asks Makoto, lifting the page for him to see.

Makoto's forehead crumples in concentration. "Not... really?"

It seems their professor is running late today. On page 61 a dragonfly perpetually struggles to change its fate. "I think it looks a little off," he says, but what he really wants to say is _I feel like I'm forgetting something else, like I've missed something important, and I know it, I know it, I just don't know what it is and everyday feels so hollow because I'm reaching for something that's never there_ — but he never does say anything, and Makoto tells him it looks wonderful, as always; so he takes the book back to his desk, and later, to his room, where he draws and draws and draws until he can't feel his fingers anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_He hears the boy weeping. It reaches him even in the depths of his watery bed, pulling him up to where the sky waits._

_"Why can't I be free?" he hears him sob, the beautiful, broken boy with no name. He finds him curled in the sand, the flowers wilting around him, the waves fearfully still. Haruka clambers up into the ground, takes his first painful step_ — _he hears the water calling him back, back to where he belongs_ — _but he can't return now, not after his first taste of air. "I just want to swim like you. Why can't I?"_

_To Haruka's terror he finds that he has no words to offer. He stares at the boy's trembling form, watching the dwindling flowers coil up his bare feet._

_And just like that, the crying stops._

_"I can never go back home," he whispers, voice as dead as a riverbed. He raises his head, looking right through Haruka, his eyes wide and flayed into stars, lost far beyond the ocean's reach._

_"Wait," Haruka says, heart cold, and fumbles with his voice. "Are you leaving?"_

_The waves are curling back. Haruka can feel it coming, a steadily building furor in his chest, and they need to go, they need to go right now. The seabed is dragging itself bare beneath his feet, all pink corals and shells and stones; helplessly, he watches the boy sitting there by the shore on a patch of dead flowers, waiting and waiting and waiting as the dark ocean churns and churns behind them, and Haruka knows they cannot escape._

_"Your name," he gasps, knees colliding before the boy's feet. He grabs his face and looks straight into his shattered eyes. "Tell me your name, please!"_

_His lips part. "My name?"_

_"Yes_ - _hurry!"_

 _The boy's smile is sad and still so very beautiful. "My name is_ —"

_And the whole world floods._

He hears someone rap against the door. "Haru? You called?"

Haruka turns his face from his spot on the bed and finds Makoto's disheveled head poking inside from behind door. Warily, he watches him push inside, crossing over mismatched socks, tubes of paint, and a pile of pencil shavings to where he is.

"Your room is messier than my brother's," Makoto tells him, tone light, smile fixed in place; Haruka thinks it looks a little worn. Up close he can see the darkening bags beneath Makoto's soft eyes. "You okay?" 

"Yeah, I—" he brushes off the concern, doesn't want to hear any more of it. Lately it feels like an itch, Makoto's smile, and Haruka is tired of willing it away. He stands, the bed groaning mournfully. "I finished it. The painting." He gauges the expression on Makoto's face, and then, "Would you like to see it?" 

"Oh, of- of course, Haru! I'd love to," the answer is immediate, surprised. Happy.

Without a word he walks over to the corner of the room and returns with a large canvas, setting it on its stand just before the bed as he kicks a stray sock to the side like a piece of carcass. He's sweating, he is surprised to find - his hands disgustingly damp, and it's stupid because he knows he shouldn't be. _It's Makoto_ , he tells himself, presses his lips, and steps aside to let him see his work,

But the expression born on Makoto's face is not at all what he expects. His eyes have gone wide, eyebrows pulled back as though he's just seen something forbidden - and it's raw and alien and painful and seeing it feels like a bullet to the back and Haruka doesn't know what to do. "I-" Haruka flounders, trying to explain something transient, like catching clouds with his fingers. A boy with rose hair and eyes stare back at him from the canvas, sakura branches twined round his crown, blossoming down his face in spilling coils. The sky, sun-blasted, his small glazed mouth threatening to sing. "It's the boy- the boy from the dreams I've been having," he explains hurriedly, staring at the dried paint beneath his nails. "I wanted- needed to paint him, so I thought- I just wanted to . . .  " the words falter on Haruka's tongue when he sees Makoto cover his mouth with a hand, turning his face away, eyes clamped shut. "Makoto. A-are you okay?"

He grasps Makoto's shoulder and feels a tremor go through. "I'm sorry. Hey. I'm so sorry, did I...? I shouldn't have—"

"It's beautiful," Makoto suddenly says, turning around, his breath ragged and shivering as it hits Haruka's cheek, his eyes bright with tears. The grip on his wrist is so faint it doesn't feel like it's even there. "It's beautiful, Haru."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow, he gets used to it. 

Between the endless hours at school and everything else, Haruka learns to manage. In the mornings he gets up to the sun simmering behind his curtains, makes breakfast of toast and eggs, knocks on Makoto's door just a few steps down the hall if he hasn't woken up after spending the night studying. Then, they'll walk to the station, board the train, wave to a few people they share classes with, and Makoto will make small talk as Haruka will nod, pretending to be listening until they reach campus. A few hours later it is over and they retrace their steps, going through the day like clockwork in reverse.

At least the weekends are moderately different, somehow; at precisely 9:00 in the morning when the grocery opens Haruka will be there by the sliding doors, basket in hand. And then later: lunch, wherever he feels like eating: there's a whole street right out in front that serve the flavors of the world: Chinese, Mexican, even Mediterranean if he feels like it (and he usually does, because the place is real nice and the food is great and there's always only a handful of customers so he doesn't have to worry whether a person he makes eye contact with is someone he used to know, should know). And then, if Makoto has the day-off, which lately he usually does, they take the train to the zoo, or the fair, or go biking through the park. And then Monday arrives, the days reshuffle, and he does the entire thing all over again.

It becomes all too easy to pretend that everything is the way it should be, when he wakes up in the middle of the night overwhelmed with the feeling of being lost, and he thinks he might be in the wrong room, in the wrong city, in the wrong body; he learns how to swallow the questions that rise unbidden when he waits for his tub to fill, learns to ignore how the days feel like an endless lull, like the sky after a firework show - melding together until Haruka cannot distinguish one from another; the hollowness becomes something familiar, like second-skin, and it's frightening how he doesn't even have to think twice, when Makoto bursts inside his room after nights of waking up with his throat feeling like it's not a part of his body; with fearful eyes that ask him _what's wrong?_ \- the words that come next the easiest of all - "Nothing," Haruka says, easy - easy because it's the truth. _Nothing_.

So he paints the girl next door, the one with the pretty blue eyes, the elderly couple on the eleventh floor of the building; he fills in the margins of his books during lectures with rough sketches of little nothings: trees, ships, trophies, Makoto's cat. The little boy he dreams about. It is the only color he knows.

Tomorrow, it will be the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(He doesn't remember much, but he remembers the firsts.)

—he remembers the look on Makoto's face the first time he stepped inside his room and saw Haruka under blinding white sheets looking like some kind of joke: there was an IV drip inside his elbow, casts around both legs, caked around his right arm, his face wrapped with gauze and reeking of disinfectant; how it had contorted Makoto's face until it was almost unrecognizable as Haruka himself. The sound that trickled past his lips, as fragile as glass. 

—the first night in the apartment, he remembers, the afternoon sky was blue. He had sat on one of the whittled chairs by the kitchen staring out the window until the mug of coffee Makoto made him went stale; thoughts full of everything and nothing, about what was possibly there to come next. There was a bouquet of flowers by table next to him, blooming with white lilies and yellow roses and other flowers he couldn't name; _Love From Nitori_ , the card said, in flawless cursive, and he had spent hours staring at letters, trying to piece together the outline of a memory that kept slipping through his fingers. By the time Makoto came home from the grocery at about eight in the evening, the sky was murky and he had long forgotten about the time, about dinner, the painkillers the doctor gave him for his mending bones that he kept in the second drawer. But it was fine, though; there wasn't much to forget.

—the first time he learned Makoto could refuse him - "Why can't we take a taxi?" he had asked, when he realized how he hated the train, hated the noise and the crowds that flocked there - Makoto's face _twisting_ just as the words leave his mouth. "It's not safe, Haru," he had explained, forcing it through his teeth (and Haruka has never questioned it since).

—and then, of course, he remembers the first night the dreams begin, like some sort of distorted fantasy. He remembers how the boy had called his name: _Haru, Haru_ —like a song, the sound the sea makes; how he had torn right out of his slumber, gulping in air, feeling as though he had just witnessed something terribly, terribly important, how it had hovered there, right on the tip of his tongue, so close he could taste it; how he had stood there in the stillness of the dark, chest heaving, waiting for.... for what? It was gone, just as soon as it came.

 

 

 

 _But the dream is different today. There is no ocean, no land, no tessellated sky - just strange buildings with flickering lights, the smell of ash, and a nuclear sun roiling above Haruka's head. The streets are crowded here, like a sea of color endlessly crashing against each itself_ - _there are blonde boys on skates and blue-eyed girls with lovely willowy dresses, moonlighting lovers with their dark coats gleaming in the neon light, but all Haruka can see is the boy with the hollow eyes, standing in the middle of the street._

 **Wait** _, he tries to scream, wills his voice to reach him, but it feels like he's underwater, the current snatching his voice with it. The boy is turning away. **Wait**_ —

 _Haruka runs, heart in his throat, weaving his away through the mass of blurred faces. He feels it, knows it: he needs to reach him or else something terrible will happen. The pavement slaps like a metronome beneath his feet, staccato beats resounding in his ears, and he can never go fast enough. He sees the bright hair there, disappearing down another street with a name Haruka can't pronounce; the fog is clogging up is lungs, choking him, dragging his steps. **Hey**_ — ** _stop!_** _Giggling bubbles escape his lips and disappear into the sun. The boy reappears under the shadow of a billboard, hands buried deep in his pockets. Haruka runs. Pulls himself back just in time for a train to come barreling past from his left, screaming on its tracks, its windows empty, the wind pulling with it shadows and fog and all remaining dregs of hope._

 **_Please,_ ** _Haruka whispers, hunched on his knees, lungs full of water, fit to bursting. **Don't go.**_

_The train makes a somnolent sound, pulsating deep in its belly, and Haruka stares helplessly on, fists clenched, so angry he could cry._

Don't go.

 _But the train just keeps on moving, keeps on howling - there is no end to this, he knows, and the shadows are still slithering around his heels, the skyscrapers still looming above, and steps between them are growing still, growing and growing and will keep on growing and Haruka thinks_ -enough- _the floodwaters tossing violently in his lungs, screaming for release, and_

_He screams the boy's name._

_The world breaks open. Haruka falls through the crevice beneath_ —

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Oi. Haru?"

The world that greets him when he opens his eyes is bright. A nice kind of bright, Haruka's mind registers, pulse still loud in his ears - it's soft around the edges, embryonic, like looking through a filter, or a fishbowl. He's in a car, he realizes, the machine humming around him while a radio station plays some jazz, seatbelt secure across his front; with a start he gasps, dragging in breath after hungry breath, a fish on land with newly formed lungs.

"You okay?"

He hears the voice again, turns to face it. Freezes.

"...Rin?"

Rin looks at him - not a boy, no - but tall and sour-looking and all of twenty full years, staring at him with eyes Haruka knows better than anyone, his hands on the steering wheel, familiar hands, his cheeks and hair and shoulders and just - _Rin -_ and Haruka doesn't know what starts to tumble past his lips, doesn't really care, 

"You- I-I thought—"

"Whoa, easy," Rin says, frowning, the thin red line of his eyebrow curling delicately. He throws a quick glance at the rearview mirror and begins to slow down.

"Rin," he breathes out. "Rin Matsuoka."

His brows furrow. "That's the name."

 _He's wearing the stupid jacket again_ , Haruka thinks absently, throat tight. "You're wearing the stupid jacket again."

Rin looks horribly affronted. "It's not stupid," he says defensively, pulling the electric yellow fabric closer to himself. "I thought you were going to hyperventilate or something. And here I was, worried for your ass." 

"I thought-" he begins, trying to find the words but they are lost on his tongue. He rubs his temples instead, pulling in another shuddering breath. He tries again: "What happened?"

"Well," Rin smiles at him cheekily. Outside the window is the ocean, waiting like a long-lost dream, wide and endless and alive. "I was reminding you of the grand tale of how we raced each other to the beach on foot back in middle school and how I _totally_ left you in the dust - I totally did too, just saying - but of course you just _had_ to fall asleep on me and now you're up and you're just really weirding me out." 

A pause. "I... fell asleep."

"Yeah," Rin says, starting to look annoyed. "So. What's the deal? Nightmare?"

"I..." Haruka says, lips parted. His mind feels like swirling fog, and he realizes he doesn't know what else there is to say. Rin is here, Rin is here and it's enough, and the thought alone makes something rise in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly he's smiling, splitting his face so wide Rin has to stare. "It's nothing," he says, leaning his head back on the seat, the road empty and spread out before him. "Nothing."

"Okaaay. Whatever you say, weirdo," Rin says, but his eyes are fond. "You could take a nap if you want, the next hotel is still an hour an a half away." Haruka nods, slowly shuts his eyes. _Oh darling, oh darling, don't let me go_ , sings the woman on the radio, voice sleazy-soft and succulent. "Oh, and Haru,"

Rin's voice is soft all of a sudden. Haruka turns to face him.

"What?"

"Yesterday, what I said," the flush creeping up Rin's neck as he bites on his words is unmistakable. "I meant it. Okay?

Haruka stares at him blankly. "Yesterday?"

The tips of his ears are already ripe and burning. "Screw you, don't you dare make me say it again," Rin looks so young and vulnerable when he's embarrassed like this, and Haruka thinks it might be nice to kiss him - yeah, he just might, too, maybe; except when he shifts on his seat to lean a little closer he sees a blur of movement just behind Rin's head, a golden blur slowly being fine-tuned, until there is not one but two, and then three, and then six, and all of a sudden Haruka's feet go cold again.

There are goldfish swimming outside the window. 

"No," Haruka whispers, horrified when no sound escapes his lips; they are underwater again, where words have no power and are nothing but air - and Rin is here but he doesn't know anything, his eyes lackluster and unseeing; _nonono not again, please not again_ \- somewhere, he hears the ocean calling him once more, somewhere back home, with his brothers' heaving cries, _we told you, didn't we? this is all your fault, the sea has taken his father and now it will take him_ \- outside, the sky is a dark, dead sheet of ash, the road before them blurring into gray and Haruka realizes they are going too fast, _they are going too fast_

 **Stop** , he screams at Rin, but his eyes are faraway, face smooth with perfect calm, as the radio sings them a velveteen dirge, the goldfish swimming slow, languid circles behind the glass . . . Haruka lunges for Rin's shoulder, the road coming in too quickly, far too quickly, its boundless stretch of gray, a lullaby - _darling, oh darling, don't let me_

 

 

The world upturns

 

 

he makes a desperate grab for Rin's hand — the road above shrinking from view

 

 

the ocean blue **_rushing_** up to meet them—

 

 

Someone is screaming . . . who? He feels numb, pushed out of his body. _Rin?_ He recognizes the voice, but the words are unformed. _What are you...?_ Somehow he feels his chest go light, and he's drifting up, up, a heaviness behind his lids,

 

 

someone calling him - _there_ , again; he's drifting up, up, up . . . the water releasing it's hold, his head breaking the surface—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

"Haru!" 

Everything comes roaring back into him all at once; the whiteness, the noise, the color; rushing back until Haruka gasps, clawing air back into his shrivelled lungs, eyes wide and heart palpitating. 

"Haru?" he hears Makoto's voice, thrumming as though behind glass. Slowly, his face pulls into focus, his large hands settling on his shoulders. "You're really pale. Are you—" 

Haruka doesn't let him finish, tearing past him, shivery-limbed, eyes wide and staring straight into nothing. The world feels fragmented around him, floating in a thick haze of thought; he wobbles on his feet, and crashes shoulder-first into a shelf, books and pencil holders falling around him like debris.

"Haru!" Makoto shouts, outstretched arms too late to catch his fall. He falls to his knees and rights the shelf behind Haruka, gathers the pile of sketchbooks pooling on his lap and hurriedly begins to stack them one by one.

"What," Haruka croaks, grabbing Makoto's wrist before he closes the leaves of the book. "is...?"

He feels Makoto go rigid beneath his palm. Slowly, he pulls the book from his fingers and lays it down before his feet - and finds another, sliding a loose page from beneath a pile of dictionaries, doesn't speak, straining behind the silence; soon, he gathers himself a collection: another sketchbook. A page. Three pages. Four. A sketch in charcoal. An open book, page 37. He lines them up wordlessly with trembling fingers,

And finds the same face staring back up at him; the same sharp-toothed grin, the same eyes, all of them, 

 

 

_And he remembers the crash that lurches them both forward against the dashboard, everything else after nothing but fragments of color and sound, the road disappearing from beneath them, the grind of metal on metal,  scr e a  m   i    n    g_

 

 

Frantic, Makoto grabs his shoulder. "Haru-"

 

 

_The ocean's maw coming into view. A darkness. Their fingers, melded together. His mouth is full of bubbles, his lungs full of stone. The sea not as blue as he had imagined._

  

 

"Please, Haru," Makoto pleads, shaking his shoulder. "Don't think about it, please." Haruka just stares right through him, unseeing,

 

 

_And later, when sunlight finds them: Haruka splayed on his back, his body in splinters, pulled to wakefulness by the piercing wailing of the sirens. Turns to his side and finds Rin inches from his face, and he thinks: his lips are blue, why are his lips so blue?_

"I..." his tongue feels like cotton, too big for his mouth,

 

 

 _He_ _remembers waking up to a hollowness settling itself deep in his chest. He follows the ghost lingering in corridors, sees its back rounding corners, in closing elevators, hears it whisper his name even in his sleep. He remembers it all: teacups, secret grins, legs twined beneath dinner tables, a trophy, a medal, a ring_ — _"We're going on a little vacation," his things packed in the trunk, the car's door open, Rin's smile waiting beside the passenger seat,_

 

 

—out of a canvas from the corner of his room, Rin's mouth parts into a tiny song,

_The world was bright. The promise had lingered in Haruka's pulse, in the fierce heat of Rin's palms; they were hidden under the shadow of trees,_

 

 _Sakura trees_ , Haruka thinks, and empties his stomach on the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**x**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cart's wheels squeak across the linoleum floor as it disappears behind another aisle.

"Nagisa-kun," Rei presses, stiff-necked and slightly out of breath. He pauses to roll up his sleeves before resuming to push on the cart. "People are _staring_."

From inside the cart, knees folded to his chest, Nagisa picks up a bottle and squints his eyes at the label. "Don't be too self-conscious, Rei-chan," he hums. "Also, I didn't know people actually made _seaweed flavored_ sports drinks. How does that even taste like? Gross."

"I'm serious, Nagisa-kun. This is a grocery store, not a playground," Rei says, quickly increasing his steps as they narrowly pass by a man in uniform. "And you aren't sixteen anymore. Please do know that I am very thoroughly embarrassed at the moment."

Nagisa perks up in a tiny giggle. "And you aren't sixty either, Rei-chan. There, there! Chocolate milk, aisle 5!"

Rei sighs, decides to give up. He grabs a pack of tissue rolls as they pass a rack of toiletries and tosses it inside the cart, purposefully launching it at Nagisa's golden head; mentally, he crosses the item out on his list. They round the corner and enter the aisle lined with dairy - full creams, whipped creams, jugs of strawberry soya - and as Rei's eyes zero in on the figure just a few feet away, his heart drops, begins to beat its harsh, familiar pounding, like it did back when he was still a freshman in high school, body curved in mid-flight, the glory of the track spread out before him. 

The wheels on the cart slow to a stop, and Rei knows Nagisa has seen it too.

The first time he sees Haruka Nanase again it's after two years; he finds him taking a carton of organic eggs into his cart, his hair painted blue under the bright fluorescent bulb.

"Haruka-senpai," the words leave his mouth before he can think, and somehow in the silence of the grocery store perhaps Haruka hears him, a good seven feet away, his head turning to its side to follow the sound of his name. The parting of his lips, the almost imperceptible widening of his eyes is so painfully familiar; Rei stands stock-still, voice locked in his throat as he watches Haruka go behind his cart and push it forward - to where they are, and suddenly he feels a wave of panic ripple through him, like watching in horror as a disaster slowly unfolds. Before he realizes it Haruka is right before them, cart left behind. 

"Nagisa. Rei." It sounds so startlingly _normal_. Rei blinks, the words stuck behind his lips. 

"Haru-chan," it's Nagisa who first recovers, sounding like a child. The sound of crinkling wrappers from the cart fills the air as he moves to his knees, eyes wide. "Wow- I, uh, I didn't expect to see you here!"

The smile curving on Haruka's lips is small, but somehow, it's there _,_ clear as day. "You too," he says. He turns to Rei, nods. "I never got to say congratulations for passing."

"T-Thank you, Haruka-senpai," he splutters, the remark completely unexpected. He feels himself growing warm. The Haruka before them feels . . . familiar. Like the old one, and it isn't fair, Rei thinks, stomach suddenly twisting into itself. He coughs, once, twice, and forces a smile through his teeth. "Well, it seems you are doing well, Haruka-senpai. We don't want to bother you or anything, so, um... we'll just be going on our way."

He can tell Nagisa wants to protest. "Oh, but-" he looks torn, eyes flitting for a second to catch Rei's gaze. "Right," his shoulders cave. "Have a nice day, Haru-chan. Sorry for... for bothering you."

Rei begins to turn the cart around.

"Wait," he hears Haruka say, and he's struck by how much he _wants_ him to.

"Yes?" he replies, swings around a little too quickly. Up close he realizes Haruka's hair is cut a little shorter than he remembers, cleaner around the nape.

He doesn't expect the emotion in Haruka's eyes when he pulls in a breath, looks right into his eyes and whispers: "It's _me_."

And whatever he says after is long lost and forgotten because in the next moment Rei finds himself launching his body at Haruka - no longer the shadow who used to be a stranger to them for two long years, everything else tossed out the window - wrapping his arms around him, hearing himself say: _is it, really?_ And Haruka gripping the back of his shirt with a white-knuckled ferocity, his voice trembling against the cloth on his shoulder - _yes, i'm back and i'm sorry i'm so sorry for everything i'm sorry for shutting you out i'm sorry for running away i'm sososorry -_ Nagisa tiptoed on the cart and draping himself over their heads with a wail and laugh as bright as the sky, their knees almost giving out; somewhere in-between there are tears and Nagisa finally hushes Haruka into silence and Rei's glasses end up skewed to the side - as he slides them properly back into place he sees Makoto standing behind Haruka in silence, celery tucked under his arm and his other hand over his mouth to hold back silent tears.

"Mako-" Nagisa's cry is cut off when he runs and seals them together, finally, wide arms twined around their shoulders to finish the puzzle - but of course it isn't, they will always be terribly, terribly incomplete, and four will never be five - but finally, _finally_ , another piece has been put back in its place, and maybe this time they can move forward again. Together.

"I wanted to-" Haruka gasps, his voice muffled against Rei's coat. "I wanted to- I didn't know how to start, I was- terrified, but I-"

"Okay, alright, alright!" Nagisa interrupts, pulling Haruka's arm into the cart before he can finish. He gives a startled cry before collapsing inside, elbow jammed uncomfortably beneath him, turning the vegetables and cookies into mush. "Enough! Today calls for a celebration - I say we need strawberry ice cream for the grand reunion!"

"Leave it to me," Rei says and dashes forward, barely giving Haruka a chance to gather himself, his left leg still hovering in the air. 

Makoto bursts out laughing, running alongside them. "We're having a party?" he says, breathless, his nose still a little pink.

"I guess so," Haruka replies, finally upright, to which Nagisa adds: "Of course! We're inviting Gou-chan to come too. Rei-chan, ice cream, eleven o'clock!" and Rei glides the cart into a perfect 360 degree curve, his feet hovering off the floor, steady enough to let Nagisa scoop up the product with one outstretched hand. "Here you go," Nagisa says, handing it over his shoulder, smiling as though it were the easiest thing in the world.

"Impressive," Makoto says, as Haruka takes pack of freezing dessert. "How did you learn to do something like that?" Passing another aisle, Rei pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Practice is everything, Makoto-senpai," he says, looking smug,

And a small laugh escapes Haruka's lips, "You sound like Rin," he says, eyes fond, and for a moment Rei stills (for a moment, just a moment), before he smiles, wide and true.

"Hey, Haruka-senpai," he says after a while, when the cart is full to the brim, Nagisa and Haruka half-buried beneath the pile (he can hear Gou's excited trill from the Makoto's phone on loudspeaker). "Maybe, later, if you're up to it, you know. Maybe we could... go swimming?"

He holds his breath, instantly regretting opening his mouth - but then Haruka is smiling, all perfect calm, and says, "Yeah," a wistful sigh, and he breathes out slowly - Rei thinks he looks a little older, and he can't help but wonder what happened in the in-between (but that was for another time, now, wasn't it? Haruka would tell them, but - later) - Haruka's eyes closing. When they open again they are bluer than anything Rei has ever remembered. "I'd like that."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They watch daybreak come alive in the place where ocean bleeds into sky, backs against a secondhand car, watching the colors inch up the pavement, up their toes; standing ankle-deep in the glow Rin leans further back against the hood of the car, dragging in a slow breath that trickles past his lips in a tiny cloud, simmering white-hot against Haruka's shoulder.

"Glad I managed to haul your butt out of bed early enough, huh?" Rin tells him.

"It's pretty," Haruka admits, soft. The world today is bright. Behind them the road stretches indefinitely beyond, empty and waiting, always waiting, Haruka knows this now - knew it the first time Rin had clambered up the barricade towering between them and laughed, laughed this little glorious laugh that had made Haruka's blood curdle, his nose turned up from Haruka's tiny immured world as if to say: _is_ _this is it?_

Beside him, a smirk curves across Rin's mouth. "Pretty? That's all you have to say?" he pushes himself off the hood and spreads his arms wide, stretches it before the sky as if it was all his for the taking. _"_ Look at that! _"_ he shouts, head thrown back, grinning when his voice echoes, scattering as it hits the rolling hills below. _"_ Just look at it! _I love you Nanase Haruka!"_

"God, stop," Haruka mutters, lets his burning face drop into his hands. "You're embarrassing."

Laughing, he leans back against Haruka's side. "Beat that," he breathes against Haruka's nose. In the light of dawn Rin's hair looks like it's on fire. Haruka fights the urge to comb his fingers through them. He tugs at them instead. Hard.

"Oi-"

"What now?" Haruka asks, quiet, Rin's challenge long forgotten. The question perches itself uncomfortably in the spaces in between them. Slowly, the scowl on Rin's face becomes thoughtful.

"Well, I don't know," Rin says, rubbing his neck. "Does it matter?"

Haruka blinks at him. The answer is so thoughtless, so blindingly ignorant and naive, so . . . _Rin,_ and suddenly there it is, a small smile brimming at the corner of his lips, and suddenly he feels foolish.

"I guess not," he sighs, closes his eyes, remembers what Rin had told him yesterday (maybe Rin had been right all along; that today was theirs, as tomorrow will, and the day after that, always.) Wordlessly, Rin reaches for Haruka's hand, whispers a silent promise against the shell of his ear, smiling, always smiling, the sun in his teeth, and Haruka _knows_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_{i told you we'd make it._  
  
 _we always do_ }

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fin.

 

 


End file.
